Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1887-04-09
HOME ONCE MORE.
What Bob Burdette Has to Say About
Settling Down to Housekeeping.

Settling Down to Housekeeping.
1t Is indeed pleasant to settle down
to housekeeping again after few
years OF life iii every sort of hostelry,
from an open-iace camp in the Adiron-
dacks to a New York hotel. There are
so many pleasant SURPRISES in store for
one, when one takes ones Lares and
Penates, with all the appurtenances
thereunto appertalning from the dark
solitude OF the gloomy store room in
which they have passed a few years in
sentiment and reflection. You think
OF so many more things than you say,
as you unpack the barrels OF ham
mered china and crackle ware. All
our china is real hammered and all our
crystal is the genuine crackle. Some of
our ilagile ware | hammered myself,
some the truckmen hammered, and
some was hammered when the cask
fell down the elevator well at the store
room. lam fair to middling light
weigh! packer, but | am not genius.
Consequently, it never occurred to
me, when | packed bale of pressed
hay around one tunbler, to pack
against the contingency of Il fall OF six
stories. But then | never stored be-
lore, and | knew not the ways of the
storage warehouse. do now. If ever
| store OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES these tears.
| have now nothing to store. Nothing
save only one stove leg. And it doesn't
belong to me. 1t got mixed up with
my things in the warehouse. But it is
whole; hasn't crack or flaw in it and
so | Will keep it. | have no earthly use
for it, but it does my soul good to see
something whole about the new house
beside the ones | made in the wall
hunting for hidden scantllng with
hammer and "A picture nail. | found
seanthng once. Probed for 1t with a
gimlet until got hold of it. Then |
went into the next room for hammer
and picture nail. When came back,
if somebody hadn't moved that scant-
ling | am heather from Nowgong.
haven't time to chase scantllng all
around house. So drove the nail in
to a lath and hung the picture. | am
now one picture short in that room,
but plastered the hole in the wall so
neatly you can't see where it happened.
So many little things turn up as you
uncover yonr long-hidden treasures.
hear my sister weeping in the next
room over one Of them now. She
brings her piteous face into my Lair
and says, in the tone of woman who
is aweary of life: " have found an
other moth" | say Why, you
found six yesterday what do you want
OF another?" She goes away wringine
her hands. suppose she found this one
to bring the count up to a perfect num-
Der. Why do women-God bless them
go about hunting for things they
don't wapt to find?
Only the other, day, while I was writ
ing.an Ode to Washington " and war
trying 70 think OF a rhine for hatchet
she called me down stairs. She said
| believe there is something alive in
that barrel" said in my native Ian
guage, which always comes back to me
in moments of anger: "Aw-w-w-w!
The itlom is untranslatable. Only
men who have used it know what il
means to all others it is the Unknown
able. stood on my head in that bar
rel to grasp the straw and crush hel
idle fears, and may | never see the pen
itentiary if a possession OF starveling
mice didn't stampede up my back ant
jump off my waving legs. | did no
come out of that barrel so hastily as yor
might suppose. My intention was tC
come out rather abruptly, but | checked
it. A naila foot long, which ran into
my back eighteen inches, helped me tt
pause. They had to knock the Other
head of the barrel in and let me craw
through that way. am now a teeto
taller, but had nail that day that fol
staying qualities beat any "nent ticker
that ever introduced failed man to the
james jambs. Robert j. Btarlette, !,
Bvokiyn Eagle.